Reasons for Designation
Beneficial land use over the years has enabled Bow Hill and Kingley Vale to
support one of the most diverse and well-preserved areas of chalk downland
archaeological remains in south eastern England. These remains are considered
to be of particular significance because they include types of monument more
often found in Wessex and south western Britain. The well-preserved and often
visible relationship between trackways, settlement sites, land boundaries,
stock enclosures, flint mines, ceremonial and funerary monuments in the area
gives significant insight into successive changes in the pattern of land use
over time.
Cross dykes are substantial linear earthworks typically between 0.2km and 1km
long and comprising one or more ditches arranged beside and parallel to one or
more banks. They generally occur in upland situations, running across ridges
and spurs. They are recognised as earthworks or as cropmarks on aerial
photographs, or as combinations of both. The evidence of excavation and
analogy with associated monuments demonstrates that their construction spans
the millenium from the Middle Bronze Age, although they may have been reused
later. Current information favours the view that they were used as territorial
boundary markers, probably demarcating land allotment within communities,
although they may also have been used as trackways, cattle droveways or
defensive earthworks. Cross dykes are one of the few monument types which
illustrate how land was divided up in the prehistoric period. They are of
considerable importance for any analysis of settlement and land use in the
Bronze Age. Very few have survived to the present day and hence all
well-preserved examples are considered to be of national importance.
Despite some tree-root disturbance and localised damage caused by the
excavation of a modern flag pole setting, the cross dyke on the south eastern
spur of Bow Hill survives well and contains archaeological remains and
environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it
was constructed. The monument is one of a series of linear boundaries
constructed across the three limbs of the Y-shaped hill, partly enclosing the
hill top and The Devil's Humps round barrow cemetery. These monuments are
broadly contemporary and their close association will therefore provide
evidence for the relationship between land division and funerary practice
during the period of their construction and use.
Details
The monument includes a cross dyke running across a spur which projects from a
ridge of the Sussex Downs.
The cross dyke is a south west-north east orientated ditch, 240m long, 9m wide
and c.2m deep, flanked on the south east side by a bank 2m wide, surviving to
a height of 0.5m above the surrounding ground. The line of the ditch coincides
with the course of a modern parish boundary. On the north west, upslope side
is a slight counterscarp bank c.1m wide and around 0.2m high. To the south
west, the cross dyke fades out at the point where the ground falls away to
form the south western slope of the hill. At around 110m from the south
western end, the course of the ditch is interrupted by a slight, semicircular
bank, but continues immediately beyond this for around 70m, until it is cut by
a later track. The surface of the track is excluded from the scheduling,
although the ground beneath it is included. To the north east, the dyke ends
in a distinct, shepherd's crook-shaped terminal, where the bank and ditch
curve round sharply to the south east. Inside the curve of the terminal is a
deep, subrectangular excavation, the site of a recently removed modern
flagpole setting.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
